Sunday, October 21, 2018

The Best Free Credit Score Apps

Your credit score determines the interest rate that lenders charge you for debt (and whether you can secure a loan at all). That means your credit score affects everything major you buy—your car, your house, and even your education. It makes sense not only to track your credit score but also take the necessary steps to improve it. These apps will help you do both.

Will Checking My Credit Score Impact My Credit Score?

No. Checking your credit score is usually a “soft request” or a “soft pull,” which means it does not affect your credit score. This is different from “hard requests,” that do affect your credit score; those happen when you do things like apply for credit cards or loans. Credit Karma has a great article highlighting the difference between the two types of requests if you’d like to learn more.

And with that, let’s get to the apps.

Credit Karma: Best for Most People

Credit Karma is perhaps the most popular free service for checking your credit score and it’s the one we think is best for most people. Creating an account is quick, and you don’t even need to share your credit card number. The score is updated weekly and fetched with a “soft pull” so that your credit score is not impacted at all.

Credit Karma pulls your credit report from Equifax and TransUnion—both of which use VantageScore 3.0. Your credit report will include a report card, which will list the factors that affect your credit score. You can check your credit score any number of times and changes in your score will tell you if your score is improving or not. Credit Karma lets you check in on the different accounts that make up your credit report so you can always see what’s up on your report.

Credit Karma’s iOS and Android app also alert you about any important changes to your credit score and also let you report disputes if you find any.